Turning fat and lye into soap by saponification, one of the oldest pieces of practical chemistry a household owns. Cold-process soap making, worked with oils, lye, molds and patience, is among the most popular of the revived domestic arts, and its chemistry is unchanged from the ancient recipe. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Earliest Evidence (Circa)The earliest recorded evidence of soap-like materials dates to circa 2800 BC in ancient Babylon 1 OriginThe earliest known written soap recipe is a Sumerian clay tablet from around 2500 BC, describing oil boiled with wood ash for washing woollen cloth; what it produced was a proto-soap rather than true soap in the later chemical sense, but the reaction it records is sometimes called the earliest recorded chemical reaction of any kind. 1 FAQs
When was soap first made?
Proto-soap dates to around 2800 BC in Babylon, but true, deliberately foaming soap emerged later and its inventor is unknown.
The earliest recorded evidence of soap-like materials dates to around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon, and a Sumerian clay tablet from around 2500 BC records a formula made by heating oil and wood ash. These early proto-soaps were used for washing wool rather than the body. True soap, made deliberately so it foamed, only emerged later, and by the sixth century soapmaking had become organized enough in Naples to support its own guild. Who first achieved true soap, and whether it was invented once or independently more than once, is still an open question.
Connections
Associated With
Candle Making, Crafts Both crafts historically drew on rendered animal fat (tallow) as a shared raw material, molded soap and molded candles alike.
Source Tallow (Wikipedia)
Open Questions
Source Soap (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Soap (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap, History section
A formula for making a soap-like substance was written on a Sumerian clay tablet around 2500 BC. This was produced by heating a mixture of oil and wood ash, the earliest recorded chemical reaction, and used for washing woolen clothing.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap, Medieval Europe section
Soapmakers in Naples (then under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire) were members of a guild in the late sixth century, and in the eighth century, soap-making was well known in Italy and Spain.
View the Source Tallow (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Candle Making, Tallow, introduction and Candles sectionQuote, Associated With: Candle Making, Tallow, introduction and Candles section
Tallow is used mainly in producing soap and animal feed. Tallow was once widely used to make molded candles before more convenient wax varieties became available.
Open Questions (1 open question)
Who first invented true soap, and did it happen once or independently in several places?
True soap, which foamed and could be made deliberately in a hard or soft form, differs from the proto-soaps of ash and fat mentioned in Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian texts. Alkali was used to clean textiles for thousands of years before soap forms, and knowledge of how to produce true soap emerged sometime between the early proto-soap mentions and the first century AD, but no single inventor or society is confirmed; it may have been invented independently more than once.
What would resolve this A securely dated recipe or artifact demonstrating deliberate true-soap production earlier than the first-century AD accounts, or documentary evidence naming a specific society as first to combine enough fat with alkali to foam.
Archaeological chemistry, textile historySoap (Wikipedia)
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